Cream 5: Live Cream

Just because the band was done didn’t mean there wasn’t money to be skimmed off Cream. With all three members still active with various new projects, their label went back to the vaults and emerged ere long with Live Cream, which mostly presented two sides’ worth of extended versions of songs from the first album, recorded during the same stretch of shows that spawned the live portion of Wheels Of Fire. “N.S.U.” is particularly good, though we always think “Sweet Wine” is played too slowly. The sound is terrific, and the interplay excellent. Oddly, the compilers also chose this outlet to unleash “Lawdy Mama”, a Disraeli Gears outtake better known as “Strange Brew” with different lyrics.

Two years later, after Eric Clapton had already struck gold on his own and with Derek and the Dominos, Live Cream Volume II leaned more on the “hits” (“White Room”, “Sunshine Of Your Love”, f’rinstance). This time the sources were split between the same Wheels Of Fire shows and those from their farewell tour, as sampled on Goodbye. “Deserted Cities Of The Heart” stands out, but then again so does the crowd noise throughout, and it’s a matter of taste whether these particular tunes sound better live. But the key draw here is a 13-minute exploration on “Steppin’ Out”, which Clapton had done with the Blues Breakers, but hadn’t been included on any Cream album. Both albums, while more tossed together than lovingly presented, still showed off the band’s power, and nicely bookend their work.

From there, Cream’s legacy was recycled through countless complications and repackages. Clapton was the only surviving band member when, over half a century after the band called it quits, the powers that be put together Goodbye Tour—Live 1968, a set of four discs each containing a complete show from that brief run. The Oakland show is arguably the most interesting, as the set list varies the widest from the other three; Ginger Baker takes his drum solo on “Passing The Time” instead of “Toad”, which wasn’t performed. “Toad” as well as “Traintime” show up on disc two and three; the crowd was rowdy at the L.A. Forum, and not because of Buddy Miles introducing the band, while the San Diego show is heard for the first time ever here. Finally, while the final show at the Royal Albert Hall had already been broadcast at the time and released on video (it’s the one where the camera on Jack Bruce’s microphone is close enough to show his fillings and tonsils) this is the first time it’s been on CD. While it sounds like mud compared to the other discs, it’s historically important. Though you’d think someone would have noticed that some of the photos in the booklet are backwards.

Cream Live Cream (1970)—3½
Cream Live Cream Volume II (1972)—3
Cream Goodbye Tour—Live 1968 (2020)—3